A TRIBUTE 



TO 



LEVI STOCRBRIDGE, 



BY 



WILLIAM H. BOWKER, of the Class of '71. 

 II 



Read at the Memorial Exercises at Commencement, Am- 

 Herst, June 15, 1904. 



Professor Stockbridge was very near, very dear, and very neces- 

 sary to " his boys ; " and he counted us all as " his boys," whether 

 we had just entered the College or had grown weary and gray in 

 life's battle. He was a father to many and a counsellor to all. We 

 cannot think of him in an impersonal way, but always in the rela- 

 tionship of friend and comrade — one to whom we could take our 

 troubles — one who would meet us on our own plane, whether we 

 came from the farm or from the city. He had been a farmer's boy 

 himself — he knew the boy's environment, his habits of thought and 

 his ambitions, and therefore could meet him on a common ground ; 

 yet he was equally interested and successful in dealing with the city- 

 bred boy. He loved young manhood from every station of life. To 

 him all boys possessed great possibilities, and he felt it incumbent 

 upon him to find these out and direct them into proper channels. 



He came of the purest New England stock, of a large and devout 

 family, whose parents, like so many others, were ambitious for their 

 children, but not able to give each one a college education. In the 

 Stockbridge family it fell to the lot of the oldest brother to enter 

 Amherst college. Levi, no doubt, felt that it was unfortunate, if not 



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